I was reading (and enjoying the picture) of a red tailed hawk over at Fred's place. This got me to thinking how lucky we are, in our little town to have a woman that specializes in raptor and accipiter rehabilitation. In the next town over, there is a woman that rehabilitates other types of birds.
The raptor/accipiter rehabilitationist lives less than a mile away from us, and occasionally brings some of her birds down our road (excercise, training, just for a walk and letting the birds get comfortable with her? I don't know). It is amazing to watch a 60-something year old woman walk down the road with a large, hooded bird on her arm; it must certainly get tiring. She does some educational work with school children, using the variety of facinating birds she has (some can't be let back into the wild because of their injuries).
I remember one time when Nicky and Sampson saw her on the road and ran down to greet her. both dogs were big, 70-90 pounds, and the run to the road is downhill, so they definitely gained speed. They wouldn't have hurt anybody or anything, but Nancy, the rehabilitator, couldn't know this. We were yelling at the dogs to come back, and they naturally didn't listen (this was before we had neighbors, so the training was a bit lax). Nancy stayed very calm - never yelled at the dogs or anything. She just stopped in the road and held her arm as high as she could, so the bird was out of reach of their questing noses. After they had sniffed her once or twice, the dogs decided to listen to us and came back. We apologized to Nancy and she assured us it was no big deal, they were just curious and didn't mean, or cause, any harm. Neither she, or the bird, had any ruffled feathers after the incident.
We became more vigilant about who was walking down the road, and never had another close encounter like that. Nancey still occassionally walks a bird down the road, sometimes with another person who also carries a bird. It is neat to watch, and always a pleasure to exchange howdies with the lady who cares for injured birds!
I had to go back to re-read which dogs were involved. In my mind's eye, I saw Shiloh! Wonderful tale, Bogie.
Posted by: Cop Car | July 25, 2004 at 04:36 PM
Shiloh never saw the house - just the last apartment we were in before we bought this place. I can understand how it would be hard to keep track of everyong though!
Posted by: bogie | July 26, 2004 at 04:52 AM